effect the reformation which he
was directed to accomplish, under the responsibility denounced to him as
aforesaid, if he should fail therein, as he was supposed to be
substantially invested with all the powers of government.
LIX. That, instead of the said support or instruction, he, the said
Hastings, did countenance, or more probably cause or direct, a
representation to be made to him by the acting minister of the Nabob of
Oude, complaining grievously of the proceedings of the Resident
aforesaid, as usurpations on the Nabob's authority and indignities on
his person. And although he, the said Hastings, did instruct the
Resident, Bristow, to inform the said Hyder Beg Khan that he would not
receive from the Nabob, as _his_, letters directed by the spirit of
opposition, but should consider every such attempt as his, the
minister's, as an insult on our government, yet he did receive as _his_
the Nabob's own letters, and as written from the impressions on his own
mind, and as the suggestions of his own judgment, letters to the same
effect as those written by the minister, although he had declared upon
record that the said "Nabob was a mere cipher in his, the said
minister's, hands," and "that he had dared to use both the Nabob's name,
and even his seal, affixed to letters either directed to the Nabob or
written as from him without his knowledge," and although he did assert
or record as aforesaid, that, in a letter which he had lately received
from the Nabob, the minister had the presumption to make the Nabob
declare that which was _true_ to be _false_, and that "his _making use_
of the Nabob in such a manner did show how thin the veil was by which
_he_ covered _his own acts_, and that such artifices would only tend to
make them the more criminal from _the falsehood and duplicity with which
they were associated_."
LX. That the said Hastings did act upon the letters pretended to be
written by the Nabob, as well as on those actually written by the
minister, without previously communicating the matter of the said
complaint to the said Resident, and did give credit to the same, and
coming, as aforesaid, from a person by himself, the said Hastings,
charged with artifice, falsehood, and duplicity, and with abusing to his
own evil purposes the name and seal of his master without his knowledge,
and without any previous inquiry into the facts and circumstances; and
did thereon ground an accusation against the said Resident, Bristo
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